Winter Journal

Alert the Masses: The Evolution of Mass Notification

Written by
FRANK MAHDAVI
Thursday, 08 April 2010 12:26

Part 1: Events that Heralded the Need
The Cold War
Electronic mass notification gained
prominence in 1963 when the U.S. government implemented the Emergency
Broadcast System (EBS) to quickly warn the entire population of any
emergency. In that era, school children routinely participated in
nuclear bomb safety drills, and many of us recall a voice declaring over
the television or radio, “This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast
System. For the next 60 seconds … this is only a test,” followed by a
loud, one-minute tone.
That system was replaced in 1997 by the
Emergency Alert System (EAS), designed to enable the President of the
United States to speak to the entire country within minutes. The EAS
also relies on TV and radio, but includes analog, digital, terrestrial,
and satellite broadcast. EAS is effective for reaching a very large
geographical area, but it isn’t flexible enough to target a specific
area such